


keep you closer on my body

by 152glasslippers



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Future Fic, Kastle Valentine Week, POV Alternating, Post-Season/Series 02, Smut, Touching, kastlevalentine, kastlevalentineweek2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 21:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17857628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/152glasslippers/pseuds/152glasslippers
Summary: Karen looked at Frank, at the bruises on his chest. She wanted to kiss each one. At the scars on his temple, his arms. She wanted to run her fingers over them until she could recognize them in the dark. At the smirk that started to tug at the corner of his mouth the longer that she looked at him. She wanted to taste it.At the relaxed line of his shoulders, a miracle. She wanted to memorize it.Post-season 2 of The Punisher/future fic. First kiss/first time.





	keep you closer on my body

**Author's Note:**

> *shows up late to #kastlevalentine week with smut*
> 
> One day I’ll write smut that isn’t laden with emotional baggage, but not today.

After.

After it was finished—for a sixth, seventh, an eighth time, she didn’t know—he came back to her.

It was big and messy, his most recent war, and it’d brought them into each other’s orbit again. They’d had it out that night, all the ugly spilling out between them. Fisk. Bullseye. The night at the Bulletin, her dead coworkers. Father Lantom. Rawlins, Russo, the details she hadn’t been able to dig up on her own. The Schultzes’ conspiracy, how it’d ended with the man in black. The seven bullets she’d unloaded into Wesley. Why’d he’d really gone after Amy in the bar that night. Kevin.

Her life was dangerous without him. His life was empty without her.

When he left that night, it was different. It was with a promise.

“I’ll find you when it’s over.”

It wouldn’t ever be over; Karen knew that. There’d always be another fight for him. But she was done walking away from Frank, and he was done asking her to.

He showed up at her door early in the morning, the clouds outside her windows bathing everything in gray, a dreamlike mix of shadows and light. The hoodie zipped up to his collarbone matched the color of the sky, and he was holding two coffee cups from the coffee shop down the street. She was already dressed for work. He’d called the night before from a new burner phone; she’d been waiting for him.

“Hey.” His smile was soft. Not shy, but gentle.

“Hey.”

She took one of the coffees from him as he walked in, closed the door after him, led him into the kitchen. He sat down on one of the kitchen stools, and the collar of his hoodie shifted, uncovering an inch of red and purple skin.

Her sharp inhale sounded almost comically loud in the quiet stillness of her apartment.

“Frank.” She abandoned her coffee on the counter, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of him, already reaching for the neck of his hoodie, pushing it aside. Frank didn’t stop her. He turned to face her.

The bruises kept going, disappearing under the fabric of his sweatshirt where she couldn’t see. She reached for the zipper, all the while Frank watched her, calm under her ministrations, his face carefully blank.

Until she stopped, his hoodie half unzipped, and glanced up at him. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. He huffed a soft laugh, his eyes flicking away from hers and then back again, embarrassed.

“Couldn’t, uh, couldn’t lift my arms high enough to get a shirt on.”

Karen wrenched the zipper the rest of the way down in one swift move, pushed the sweatshirt from his shoulders. She heard the soft clatter as it hit the ground.

She froze, trying to steady her breathing as she took in the map of bruises on Frank’s torso, his entire left side a watercolor painting of injuries at different stages of healing. A particularly dark patch marked his rib cage. The only unbruised skin was littered with fresh scars, including a long gash on his right side to match the shrapnel scar on his arm. Her fingers found that scar first as she stepped closer to him, in between his legs, fully into his space.

Somehow, it was worse than all the times she’d seen him in a hospital bed. No gown to hide the bulk of his injuries.

“Frank,” she said again, all other words lost to her as she trailed her fingers lightly across his skin, down his chest, over to his ribcage. His face was blank again. She lay her palm flat against him, her fingers spread across his bruised skin. It didn’t even cover half of it.

She kept her hand there for a minute, staring at the patterns radiating out from under her palm. His skin was hot.

He didn’t move a muscle.

She dropped her hand further, tracing the edges of his bruises as they faded out across his abdomen, lost in the pain marring his body, at the sickening mix of anger and anguish running through her.

Frank grabbed her wrist abruptly, stilling her hand, snapping her out of it. Her eyes came into focus. Her fingers were an inch away from his waistband.

She looked up at him. The neutral expression was gone. His eyes had darkened, his jaw tense.

It recategorized his stillness in her head.

Something shifted in the air between them, washing the rage and sadness right out of her, leaving behind something that burned brighter.

She lifted her fingertips from his skin carefully, and Frank let go of her hand slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

She counted the beats of her heart in the moment that followed. _1, 2, 3._ Weighing. _4, 5, 6_. Waiting. _7, 8, 9_. Deciding.

Karen reached for the hand that had grabbed hers and brought it to her waist, to the place where her sweater met her skirt. Held his fingers there, then let go.

It was his turn to decide.

He looked away from her then, dropped his eyes to his hand as it wrapped around her waist, his fingers curling around her, holding her, his other hand coming up to do the same on her other side.

He met her eyes as he moved his hands up her torso, dragging her sweater up with them, until it pulled free from the waistband of her skirt. His hands slipped under the fabric, and Frank was touching her bare skin.

She was trying so hard to breathe normally, she was practically vibrating with the effort.

The skin of his palms, the pads of his fingertips were rough where they pressed against her. His were not unsure hands.

Karen reached for the hem of her sweater, her fingers bumping the backs of his hands, and lifted it up. She had a second to watch Frank’s eyes widen and then she was pulling it the rest of the way over her head, her hair swinging free as her sweater landed in a pile on the floor next to her. Frank’s eyes traveled from his thumbs, stroking the skin of her stomach, up to her face. He brushed a strand of hair from her face, his eyes lingering on the ends of her hair, her collarbone, her bra strap, his fingers hovering near her jaw.

Her body was starting to ache from not touching him.

He met her eyes again.

“Haven’t even kissed you yet,” he said, voice low, eyes intent.

“Then kiss me,” she whispered.

Frank stood up so fast, she felt dizzy, his body crowding her against the kitchen island, caught between the cold bite of the countertop and the heat of his skin, his body an inch from hers. Frank was a man who knew how to wield his proximity like a weapon, a threat, but with her, it had only ever been an offering. Of protection, of intimacy.

It was intoxicating.

There was an intensity to his posture, his movements, like a spring coiled tight, and yet when his hand came up to cradle her face, she thought she saw it shaking. He leaned in closer. Dropped his eyes to her mouth. They’d been this close twice before. Karen closed her eyes, felt his breath on her skin.

His kiss was soft, at odds with the tension in his body, in hers. It was warm, gentle. An admission. That this was real, that it was more than lust.

His lips left hers, the distance imperceptible, only enough space to draw in a breath, and it was that, the sound of their shared inhale, that sparked something in her, propelled her forward, her lips meeting his in a hard kiss. She was greedy, deepening the kiss as the fingers of one hand curled into his bicep, her other arm winding around his shoulders. Frank’s arm banded around her lower back, bringing her flush against him, keeping her there.

She gave herself over to it. She couldn’t hear, smell, feel anything that wasn’t Frank. The faint rasp of his stubble against her skin. The mild scent of off-brand soap layered over the metallic smell of a lit match and bitter notes of coffee. The heat of his mouth, the hard press of his erection.

They broke apart to catch their breath, and Frank tilted her head back to kiss along her jaw, his fingers curving behind her neck, his thumb under her chin.

“Feel like any minute I’m gonna wake up,” he said, lips on her neck. “Find out this was just another dream.”

His words broke through the haze in her mind. Her own words came floating back to her. _You cannot keep loving people in your dreams_.

She pulled away from his hand. His lips left her skin immediately. He lifted his head to look at her, concern forming behind his eyes.

“You dream about me?” she asked.

The concern disappeared, replaced by something teasing.

“It’s not all nightmares up there.”

She smiled, a tease of her own.

“What am I doing in these dreams?”

Frank dropped his eyes, a blush spreading across his cheeks. She wanted to lick it off. He ran his fingers along the line of her collarbone, a barely there touch, a whisper tingling on her skin until it fell away, and he trailed a single finger down the length of her sternum, traced along the edge of her bra. Her eyes followed his, watching his hand move with the rise and fall of her chest.

His hand stopped when it reached her bra strap. She looked back up at him. His eyes met hers at the same time his finger curled around and then under the strap, his finger sliding between the fabric and her skin all the way up to her shoulder. He opened his mouth, about to say something—

And her phone rang.

Karen shut her eyes against the noise, let out a shaky breath.

“If this were a dream, my phone wouldn’t be ringing.”

The sound of their ragged breathing was harsh in her ears. Her phone, harsher.

Frank released her bra strap, setting it down gently against her skin.

“Get it.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, nudged her away from him, his hands falling from her body. “Could be important.”

She walked over to the couch, reached over the back of it into her purse. It was Foggy. She took a deep breath, tucked her hair behind her ear, tried to gain some level of composure so it didn’t sound like she was standing in her living room topless, about to be felt up by the Punisher.

She said a silent prayer that Matt wasn’t with him and answered.

“Hey, Foggy.”

“Good, you’re up. Do you know where your files on the Macmillan case are?”

“You’re already at the office?” She glanced at the clock in the kitchen, behind Frank’s head. It was still only 7:30.

“Marci had to be in early to prep for a deposition, so I figured, what the hell? Why not go into the office? I’ve got nothing better to do at 7 am on a Thursday. Matt and I wanted to file a couple motions today; might be able to beat the rush. But I can’t find—”

Foggy’s voice washed over her like white noise, her eyes on Frank. He was sitting on the stool again, legs spread wide, forearms on his thighs, hands hanging between his knees. He was leaning slightly, favoring his left side, and he was watching her. Devouring her from six feet away.

She felt her heart pick up again.

“Karen? Karen, you there?”

She startled, tearing her eyes away from Frank. She pushed her hand into her hair, closed her eyes, tried to ignore the pulse between her thighs.

“The Macmillan file. It’s, uh…” _Get it together, Karen_. “It’s in a box behind my desk, in the corner by the window. Second up from the bottom.”

“I’m putting you on speaker.” The line went silent for a second and then she heard the slide of cardboard against cardboard, a thump as a box hit the ground, the shuffle of papers. “Jesus, Page, we need to get you a better filing system.”

“And you’re just realizing this now?” Her office was a Tetris game of file boxes. She hadn’t seen her desk in months.

She chanced a glance at Frank. He was still watching her. Heat bloomed across her skin even as his eyes never left her face. She needed to end this phone call before she passed out. Or burst into flames.

“You find it?” she said into the phone.

More shuffling, then—

“Got it. Thank you. I owe you a filing cabinet.” He took her off speaker phone, his voice closer, clearer in her ear. “See you in an hour?”

Karen looked at Frank, at the bruises on his chest. She wanted to kiss each one. At the scars on his temple, his arms. She wanted to run her fingers over them until she could recognize them in the dark. At the smirk that started to tug at the corner of his mouth the longer that she looked at him. She wanted to taste it.

At the relaxed line of his shoulders, a miracle. She wanted to memorize it.

Matt and Foggy didn’t track her movements; they’d never question it. She and Frank had had enough time stolen from them. They could steal some back.

“No, I’m not working from the office today.”

Frank sat up a little straighter at her words, but Foggy accepted them easily.

“Alright. Be safe.”

She almost burst out laughing. She would be, but not in the way that he meant.

“I will. Bye, Fog.”

She hung up, switched her phone on silent, and slipped it back into her purse.

“Didn’t have to do that.”

Frank’s voice was lower, rougher. She turned to look at him. His eyes were darker. She took a deep breath, walked toward him.

“Yeah, I did, actually.”

He raised his hand slightly when she stopped in front of him, and she slipped her fingers into his, marveling at the way his hand immediately closed around hers, his thumb stroking across the back of her knuckles like it belonged there. Like his hands that were meant for so much else were also meant for this.

“Why’s that?” he asked, voice hushed. Like this moment—the sunlight filtering through the windows, the cups of coffee going cold on the counter, and the two of them, their bodies touching only where their fingers intertwined between them—was precious, and he didn’t want to break it.

“Because,” she told him. “I’m not getting dressed again today. And neither are you.”

\---

Karen led him into her bedroom, and he followed her without a word, let her sit him down on the edge of her bed and kneel at his feet, taking off his boots, his socks, still in her skirt, the lace edge of her bra driving him insane.

Frank had been half-naked with an equally shirtless Karen for the better part of an hour, but his brain was having trouble keeping up.

He couldn’t say the same for his body. He was achingly hard and he hadn’t even done anything but kiss her yet.

Karen reached around the corner of the mattress to drop his boots at the foot of the bed, and he touched a finger to her chin, turning her face back to him. He lifted his hand, and she followed its movement, straightening until she was standing in front of him, over him, looking down at him with the slightest hint of confusion in her eyes.

He didn’t say anything, couldn’t explain it, just wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. Karen’s hands landed on his shoulders, and Frank pressed a kiss to her stomach before resting his head against her, falling into her. Karen ran her fingers up his neck, into his hair, stepping even further into his space. He tightened his arms around her.

They stayed that way for a minute, Frank breathing her in and Karen holding him to her, his body shifting in time with her inhale, exhale.

It felt like peace.

He kissed her stomach again, her skin even softer and warmer than he’d imagined, then raised his head to look at her. Her palms spread across his jaw, her thumbs stroking his cheekbones.

“I missed you,” he said, softly. Her hands stilled. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes. “And I know that’s on me. I get that; I do. I’m the asshole who told you to walk away. And it doesn’t make up for jack shit, but you shouldn’t…” He took a deep breath, dropped his eyes to the floor, looked back up at her again. “I don’t want you thinking otherwise. Not for a second. I missed you; I did. I thought about you all the time, Karen.”

Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears now. Maybe for all the time they’d spent apart, maybe for all the hurt he’d caused her that he’d never be able to undo.

“I thought about you, too,” she whispered. Her voice was low, husky against the silence of her bedroom, and it colored her words with another meaning, sent a jolt of electricity through his veins. “I always thought about you.”

His trigger finger twitched on the waistband of her skirt, next to the zipper.

One breathless second, then another, and Karen’s hands found his, stopped the shaking.

“Frank,” she said, and he heard it for what it was: permission.

He unzipped her skirt, and it slipped past her hips, pooling around her feet. Her underwear was a soft purple, plain, simple. His throat went dry. She leaned on his shoulders as she stepped out of her skirt, then reached up behind her for the clasp of her bra. The straps slid from her shoulders, and she dropped it on the floor, on the other side of his knee.

Everything he’d survived, everything he’d lived through, and it was this—Karen Page, standing in front of him almost entirely naked, her eyes on his—that was going to kill him. 

His heart was beating so hard he could feel his blood pounding in his ears.

A blush started to spread across Karen’s cheeks and Frank reached for her, bringing her closer to him again. She lifted a knee onto the bed on either side of him and settled into his lap, her arms winding around his shoulders, an almost familiar sensation now. Frank trailed his hands up her sides then stopped, his thumbs coming to rest against the slope of her breasts.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth like she was trying not to laugh.

“You can touch me, Frank.”

So he did. Felt the shape, the weight of her breasts in his hands, swirling his thumb around her nipples, watching her eyes close at the caress. Leaned her back in his arms to kiss from her neck to her collarbone, down to her breasts, first one then the other. He let his tongue follow the path of his thumbs before drawing her into his mouth, tugging gently with his teeth, listening to Karen’s breathing change.

He wanted her. Every inch of her. He wanted to taste her, tease her. Wind her up, watch her fall apart, and do it all over again. He wanted to feel her orgasm from the inside out, feel her clench around him, his fingers, his tongue. He wanted her arching above him, beneath him, taking him down with her. He wanted to be inside her, to come inside her, he wanted—

He wanted.

It’d been so long since he’d let himself want anything. Anything good, anything good _for_ him. Anything that _felt_ good.

He wanted it all.

He abandoned Karen’s breasts, registering her small gasp of surprise, and tilted her back toward him, crashing his mouth against hers in a bruising kiss. Karen pressed herself against him, her breasts flush against his chest, and he felt his blood rush below his waist at the contact, the feel of her against him, skin-to-skin, overwhelming.

Karen kissed along his jaw, took his earlobe between her teeth, then put her lips to his ear.

“Take off your pants, Frank.”

Her fingers trailed along the waistband of his jeans but made no move to undo his belt buckle. The next kiss she gave him was slow, unhurried, indulgent. She ended it with a short, chaste peck, and then lifted herself up and off of him, stretched out on the bed next to him.

Frank took a deep breath, almost laughing at himself, at the lightness in his chest despite his desperate arousal, at the sheer, bullheaded idiocy of denying them both of this for so long.

He stood up, unbuckled his belt, the leather making a soft whipping sound as he pulled it through the loops of his jeans. He pushed his pants down, stepped out of them, and turned to face Karen.

She was lying on her side, facing him, one arm tucked under her head, the other draped across her body. Her hair tossed on the pillow behind her head, her eyes bright on his. Her gaze pinned him in place for a second, and then he reached for the waistband of his underwear and shed those, too.

Karen’s eyes traveled the length of his body, lingered on his erection, bold, unashamed. He felt his skin get hotter by another degree.

When she met his eyes again, she said, “Condoms are in the bedside drawer.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Something flared in Karen’s eyes at the word, and Frank smirked as he pulled out a condom, left it on the bedside table. Karen rolled onto her back as he lay down next to her, his fingers sliding underneath the top of her underwear. She lifted her hips, and he tossed them over the side of the bed carelessly. His fingers climbed higher up the insides of her thighs, and he listened to her breathing get shallow, felt the shiver run through her body when he bent his head and started to kiss his way down her stomach.

He’d just reached her hip when Karen stopped him with a hand on his cheek.

“Later, Frank.” Her voice had changed. Needier. “Please.”

He leaned up and kissed her, long and deep, then pulled the condom from the bedside table. Ripped open the packet and rolled it on while Karen ran her nails over his scalp. He lined himself up against her entrance, braced himself above her—

And stopped.

The lightness he’d felt was gone, replaced by something too potent to name. Something raw and real.

All at once, the distance he’d put between them these past months—years, now—had another name, other than denial: delay.

He’d been putting it off. This moment, and everything that might follow. How much it meant. How it would change everything.

There was no going back from this. He knew that. They both did.

It must have shown on his face—shit, he was an open book like this, every wound, every scar exposed—because Karen smoothed a hand over his forehead, down his cheek.

“I just want you, Frank. All of you.”

Her touch, her voice, brought him back to himself.

“You’ve got me,” he promised.

And then it was easy. He nudged forward, slid into her a fraction. She was wet, so wet. Warm and tight and—he groaned, dropped his head to Karen’s shoulder.

He’d been wrong before. This was going to kill him.

Frank lifted his head to rest his forehead against hers.

“You okay?”

He felt her nod. She trailed a hand down his chest, careful of his bruises.

“Keep going.”

By the time he was flush against her, they were both breathing hard. He caught Karen’s whimper as he withdrew, a sound of loss, and pushed back in.

They found a rhythm, her hips chasing his, her fingers clutching at his back, his mouth on her jaw, her neck, one hand at her breast. He slid his arm underneath her, changing the angle. He pushed her knee higher, into her chest, spreading her wider. He went even deeper, and Karen cried out.

“There, Frank. Right there.”

Her eyes had fallen shut, and she was flushed all over now. The gray of the morning had burned off, the sun brighter, throwing patches of light across their skin.

She was beautiful, so goddamn beautiful.

He was trying to keep his pace, but his concentration was wearing thin.

“Karen, I can’t—” He lost the rest of his sentence in another groan, but Karen seemed to understand.

“I’m almost…” The rest of her sentence was lost to the motion of her hand as it slid between them. “Frank,” she panted. “Frank.”

“I’ve got you.”

He pressed a kiss to her lips, soft, a reassurance. Looked down their bodies to her fingers circling near where he disappeared inside her and almost lost his grip, slamming into her harder than he intended.

And that was it. Karen shattered, her mouth falling open, her back arching off the bed, her muscles clenching around him in waves.

He slowed down, carried her through it with smooth, even thrusts, until she let out a final moan, her body trembling with one last shiver.

He dropped a kiss to her cheek while she caught her breath, and she wrapped herself around him. Opened her eyes. Kissed him. Took his face in both her hands.

“Move, Frank. Come for me.”

The last of his control vanished with her words. His thrusts weren’t even or smooth; they were erratic, frenzied. Karen’s lips were everywhere she could reach, and she whispered it again between kisses.

“Come for me, Frank.”

“Karen,” he answered. It sounded like please. “Karen.”

She clenched around him again, and he was lost, his forehead against hers, her name on his lips while he came, pulsing inside of her.

He collapsed on top of her, his arms finally giving out, and Karen cradled him to her. He moved to get off of her, but she held him tighter.

“I’ll hurt you,” he protested, but she shook her head. Ran her fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. Kissed his temple tenderly, like he was a precious thing.

“Then hurt me,” she said. “It means you’re close enough to do it.”

\---

After.

After she finally released him, after the messy practicalities were taken care of—a trip to the bathroom, disposing of the condom—they lay in her bed together, facing each other. Frank on his uninjured side, one arm tucked under his pillow; Karen propped up on her elbow next to him, tracing invisible patterns across his skin.

Silence stretched between them, relaxed, unhurried, unfolding endlessly in the sun. A moment of quiet different from all the others. A moment they could trust to last longer than a moment.

“Sometimes,” she said softly, watching her fingertips dance across his chest, “when I was coming home late—from the office, or a stakeout, or…someplace I wasn’t supposed to be—” Frank snorted, and she smiled. “I’d walk back to my apartment and pretend you were out there somewhere. On the rooftops. Watching me.” She took a deep breath. “Making sure I was safe.”

Frank had his free hand curled around her bicep, on the arm propping her up, his thumbing rubbing back and forth along the curve of her muscle, but at that, he stopped. She could feel his eyes on her face, but she kept hers where they were, tracking the movements of her fingers.

“I got so good at it, it felt real some nights. I’d get goosebumps or feel it on the back of my neck. I’d actually turn around and look, like I’d find you.”

Frank slid his fingers from her arm and rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. She let her hand fall away from his chest.

“Frank?”

He didn’t look at her, just sighed.

“I was there. Sometimes. Made sure you never saw me.”

“What?”

She sat up, the sheet falling around her waist. She left it there, didn’t even care, her eyes glued to Frank’s face. Finally, he looked back at her.

“After the way we left things, after what you said that day… Couldn’t give you up. Not completely. But I was too caught up in my own bullshit to let myself be with you, to let us have this, so that’s all I gave myself. Just a glimpse of you, every once in a while, just to see you alive and—and safe.”

Karen stared at Frank without seeing him, reevaluating every memory, every night she’d wished he’d been there. Every time she’d searched for his silhouette, all the nights he might have been there when she didn’t even feel it.

“You pissed?” he asked, voice low, his eyes shifting away from hers to where their hands lay on the bed, inches apart.

“A little, yeah.”

But against her better judgment, she was also oddly comforted. That she’d been right, that somehow, she’d known. That he had been there.

That it wasn’t so easy to walk away from her.

Frank nodded at her answer, accepting it.

“You weren’t just in the good dreams, Karen.” He raised his eyes to hers, and she caught the tears there. “You were in the nightmares, too.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, pain and fear and understanding echoing between them. She slipped her hand into his.

“I’ll do my best not to make them come true.”

His hand squeezed hers, and she watched the sadness disappear from his face as his eyes drifted down over her shoulders and lower, to where her hair fell just above her breasts.

“And the good dreams?”

Karen swept her eyes over him, as slowly as he had her. Back up to his face, to the mischief lighting his eyes.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
